


Rain Wakes Me

by randomalia (spilinski)



Series: There will be fireflies [2]
Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Emotional Hurt, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:23:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4219857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilinski/pseuds/randomalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These days, Bradley only touches Colin when they're filming, when the cameras are rolling and they can both excuse the slip of Bradley's fingers along the cuff of Colin's shirt as something that belongs to two different people entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rain Wakes Me

These days, Bradley only touches Colin when they're filming, when the cameras are rolling and they can both excuse the slip of Bradley's fingers along the cuff of Colin's shirt as something that belongs to two different people entirely. Arthur's hands (and gaze and breath and shoulders) find contact with Merlin in a hundred casual ways, a thousand little collisions, but that is something else. The truth is, Bradley has not touched Colin for months.

That is because Bradley is no longer allowed to do so.

*  
Two months ago Colin had gone from pushing his tongue into Bradley's mouth, slow and dirty and deep, to looking serious and saying _not really professional, though, is it_ , to looking away whenever Bradley came near. Seemingly this change happened overnight; no, quicker, much quicker, as though Bradley had been living in some other place where time treacled its way down from bright mornings into hazy afternoons and all the while the real world was whipping by without his even knowing. A blink and it was done.

 _Stupid_ , he tells himself. _Stupid._

He knows it didn't happen that way. It's just that he missed something, which is ludicrous really, almost funny, because if there was one thing he had been paying attention to all that time it was Colin fucking Morgan, and he's too proud ( _stupid, fucking stupid_ ) now to admit anywhere but the very edges of his mind that he still doesn't know what it was; what he missed. What happened.

*  
Bradley remembers the second time like this:

"Last night," he murmurs, words tripping over themselves as he hustles Colin back against the small kitchen bench. "That was — come on, here."

"Last night," Colin says.

Bradley laughs. "Needs a repeat performance," he replies, perfectly sure. He tugs at Colin's buttons; if ever there was a need for velcro — his fingers are trembling. Adrenaline, he thinks. Tiredness. Nerves, the type that jangle along his spine whenever Colin's around, 'cause he can't help but feel like Colin's got him outclassed at every turn, like Colin knows something he doesn't.

Colin's long-fingered hands close gently over Bradley's and hold him still.

"Last night," he says again.

Bradley tries to think, not easy with his dick throbbing in his jeans, and the smell of his own sweat in the air, sweat and sweet-stale cola, a bottle open on the bench by Colin's hip.

He remembers last night. He knows every step of how it went. He just doesn't know what Colin wants.

Bradley leans in to kiss him; it seems to be right. Their lips fit together so softly he could moan.

*  
Sometimes Bradley wakes in the middle of the night with a breathlessness he doesn't like, the room airless and oppressive.

It's always too early to get up and he can't go back to sleep, and outside there's nothing but silence, like he's a million miles from anything, like he's nowhere at all.

It's unexpected, but Bradley finds himself missing the rough scratch of bristles against his tongue — how it made his balls prickle, how it sent red heat flooding through him everywhere. In his own mouth, now, the sensation hovers just out of reach, his palate too smooth and tasteless, not anything like the sharp, hot, sink-your-teeth-in jolt of Colin filling him up.

Before, when he was allowed, Bradley would open his mouth against the underside of Colin's chin while he nudged between Colin's legs and slipped hands into shadowed places.

It made Colin arch his neck and squeeze shut his eyes, and Bradley used to think it was because the feeling was so good, but maybe —

*  
One afternoon, grey with the wind rushing through the gullies of the set, Bradley rounds a corner to see Colin talking to Angel.

Colin's thin shoulders are hunched as though he feels the cold, but he manages to shrug them in a casual manner. "It's nothing," he's saying. "It's not — it's nothing."

Bradley goes over to join them, no reason not to, though he's aware of the way his chin is up and his shoulders back; he wishes Arthur's trousers had pockets for nonchalant hands.

"Alright?" he says.

Colin's kicking gently at his own left shoe, at the mud drying on the side.

"Hey," he replies, looking up briefly. "We were just saying, about the costume department, you know. How it flooded."

"Did it?" Bradley asks.

"Lynn's furious," Angel says. "I saw her drinking two cups of coffee and swearing her head off. She doesn't even drink coffee."

Bradley thinks about this. "I don't think you can drink out of two cups at the same time. It would spill everywhere."

Angel rubs wearily at one eye. "Not at the same time, Bradley," she says.

Colin smiles and then turns it into a squint, looking out across the rippling grass.

*  
The thing is, Colin gets ideas into his head and then won't shake them out again no matter how ridiculous they are. One day, for instance, he will be perfectly happy to push Bradley back onto the bed, slow enough so that Bradley won't fall but his spine will instead curve down in a calculated arc, so that Colin can put himself over Bradley and their bare chests will push together when they breathe, when they gasp. One day that will be everything.

The next day he'll say, _we shouldn't do this. Listen_ , he'll say, _I just don't think we should_ , and that will be that. Once Colin decides on something he's set, carved in bloody marble set, and there's no point trying to change his mind.

So that time Bradley caught hold of Colin's wrist, stepped in close and said, "Look, this is stupid, there's no reason not to; we're just messing around, what harm —" it was useless.

Colin had jerked his head away and slid his wrist out of Bradley's loosening fingers, interrupting him. He'd said, "Don't. No, we're not doing this anymore."

He'd looked wretched then. "Sorry," he'd added, and stepped back and that's where they are, still, two months later, because once Colin's got an idea in his head that's it. It's there for good.

*  
The first time was like this: late night, Bradley on his back with his legs dipped to either side and Colin between them, braced over Bradley with wide-spread hands. Colin strung taut and rocking his hips forward slowly, slowly, slowly, making Bradley grip hard at Colin's arms and kiss his throat, their cocks sliding together sweet and hot.

Bradley with his eyes closed, his legs spread wide, his mouth on Colin's skin; Bradley with his eyes closed while Colin pressed closer, Colin's body shaking, Colin helpless and new saying _please_ , saying _please_ , saying _I want you, I want you, I love you._


End file.
